Anquan Boldin to Fire Drew Rosenhaus, Change Agents

Will firing agent Drew Rosenhaus help WR Anquan Boldin get what he wants from the Arizona Cardinals?

The difficult contract negotiations between disgruntled receiver Anquan Boldin and the Arizona Cardinals took an interesting turn Tuesday with the news that Boldin has filed paperwork with the players' union to fire agent Drew Rosenhaus and seek new representation.

It's unclear who Boldin's new agent would be as he seeks a restructured contract or a trade from Arizona. The rules require him to wait at least five days after firing his agent to secure a new one. It's also unclear what this means in terms of where Boldin will play in 2009. Heck, it's not even really clear that he's through with Rosenhaus for good. At least not if you believe Rosenhaus's prolific and popular Twitter page.
In a four-tweet series this afternoon, Rosenhaus acknowledged the pending split with Boldin, though he did express hope that it wasn't a done deal. He also sandwiched it between a couple of slices of good news:

"We are pleased to announce that we re-signed Jeremy Shockey. Regarding Anquan Boldin, let me say I have great respect for him. I'm hopeful..

"...that we can work things out and he will return to the Rosenhaus Sports family in the near future. We are proud to continue to represent..
"..his brother D.J. Boldin. We would also like to announce that we have signed Will Allen to a 2 yr extension with the Dolphins worth $16.2

"..million over the next 3 seasons."

That's some heavy-duty Twitter-spin-misdirection, folks. If Boldin is boltin', that's not good news for Rosenhaus Sports, which was thinking it could get a new contract either from Arizona or whichever team Boldin got himself traded to.

This is, of course, far from over. There was some speculation among Cardinal players that the Boldin-Rosenhaus split might mean an improved chance of a new deal between the team and the star receiver. This is what Kurt Warner had to say, according to the AP:

"Maybe Anquan felt that there was a sticking point there and that this is going to free some things up and allow them to have a different approach coming forward and work better with the Cardinals," Warner said after the workout on Tuesday. "I really don't know. I don't want to speculate on the reasons behind it all but I think I've had hope from day one that they can get something done."

And I guess it's possible that, at least from the Cardinals' end, Rosenhaus was somehow an impediment to a deal. But if that's the case, and firing Rosenhaus improves Boldin's relationship with the team that much, that wouldn't seem to make much business sense for the Cardinals. Rosenhaus represents more NFL players than any other agent. Would the Cardinals really allow a dispute over one player to poison their relationship with the most powerful agent in the game?

Most likely, this is an expression of Boldin's frustration over not being able to get done that which he'd hoped to get done. He wants a new contract. The team wants to work on other people's new contracts (such as that of LB Karlos Dansby) before addressing his. They couldn't deal him to the Giants or Eagles or any other interested team before the draft. Boldin may just be getting impatient and have decided that he needs somebody else to get his situation resolved.